Chapter Five: The Banquet (Please Bookmark)

King Uther did not reject this unreasonable request outright as he usually would; instead, he pondered the consequences if he were to agree to Kay’s plea. After all, this was a child who had been away from home for a full decade. Emotionally, Uther found it difficult to deny his son’s first request upon returning. Yet, as king, he could not afford to be swayed by sentiment.

The magical prohibition had been a steadfast decree upheld by King Uther for over ten years—his most resolute measure in a lifetime. He could neither break nor wished to undermine this law. Granting Kay’s simple request was easy, but what would come after?

Did the gryphon fall under the purview of the magical ban? Without a doubt, it did. The gryphon was an unnatural creature, a magical beast. Owning and taming one was unquestionably against the law. If King Uther blatantly sheltered Kay’s adoption of the gryphon, it would mean he himself was breaking his own edict. Should such a thing occur, the authority of the law would be rendered meaningless, reduced to mere words on parchment.

This was not the outcome Uther desired. He understood all too well the dangers that magic could bring and would never allow the disasters wrought by magic to befall his kingdom again. Therefore, even for the request of his dearest son, the king had no choice but to refuse.

“No! The law is the law, Kay!” King Uther emphasized the last word heavily. He knew Kay was a sensible young man who understood the weight of his responsibilities as a monarch. As he said, the law is the law—if laws could be trampled at will, then there would have been no point in enacting them in the first place. For a ruler to openly flout the law would only weaken the very foundation of his reign.

Law was order, and order was the bedrock of governance. As a worthy king, Uther understood this truth deeply.

Kay met his father’s resolute gaze and could only yield reluctantly. After all, Uther was family, and Kay cherished his family above all—whether in this life or the last. He would never truly oppose his kin for the sake of a mere beast.

“Very well, but he is my prey, and I alone shall deliver the killing blow,” Kay declared solemnly. After all, this was no small gain in ‘experience points’—he would not squander it.

Upon hearing Kay’s compromise, Uther felt genuine relief. Kay was still the same steadfast son, always so understanding. Thus, the king could not deny such a reasonable request, though he himself saw it as unnecessary. The honor of having slain the gryphon belonged solely to Kay—no one could dispute that. As for the finishing blow, it was a trivial matter, hardly worth mentioning.

But since Kay insisted, Uther made no further objections.

Soon, Kay wielded his battle axe like a lumberjack, chopping the gryphon’s head with steady blows. The beast stirred once during the ordeal but was quickly felled again by a strike to the forehead, slipping into eternal unconsciousness thereafter.

After nearly fifteen minutes of effort, the gryphon’s head was finally severed. Though the cut was crude and marred the creature’s dignity, no one cared now. All present cheered the courageous warrior who had slain the beast.

***

That evening, in the grand banquet hall of the palace, a lavish feast was underway.

Yet this was no ordinary welcome banquet—there was no lively music, no boisterous toasts from knights, and even the distant long tables were deserted. Still, the atmosphere was electric, not a hint of emptiness. Every soul had gathered near the high table by the throne, and even the servants attending the hall found themselves drawn away from their duties, eager to crowd closer to the circle.

“…That day was a blizzard—a whiteout so thick you couldn’t see five meters ahead in broad daylight. The cold was biting, freezing your nose off. It was then that those wicked frost giants seized the chance to attack the Asgardian city. Those terrifying creatures each stood thirteen feet tall, clad in heavy ice armor impervious to ordinary weapons.”

At the center of the assembly, Sir Kay spoke vividly of his adventures. In this era, human activity was confined to small regions. Among the Celtic nations of the British Isles, for instance, the Celts mainly inhabited southern England near Ireland, while the north remained dense primeval forests. These ancient woods teemed with fierce beasts and supernatural beings that constantly threatened human safety. Thus, people’s worldviews rarely extended beyond fifty kilometers, often much less.

Within the hall, only a handful of knights had a broader experience, and even then, their knowledge rarely stretched beyond the Celtic lands. Kay was different. He had spent ten years journeying eastward from Camelot. First, he reached what would later be Norway, though at that time it was not yet the Viking homeland but home to a highly civilized people calling themselves the Asgardians.

Kay lived among the Asgardians for nearly a year before crossing the still-untamed European plains, eventually arriving in the warm Mediterranean. There, he encountered the civilization of Olympus and witnessed the world under its dominion. It was in that place that he first learned of Atlantis—not merely a legend but a real kingdom in the ancient Mediterranean.

To Kay, Atlantis had always been a myth, even proven fabricated, and it was said to lie in the Atlantic Ocean, not the Mediterranean…

After exploring what would later be known as ancient Greece, Kay pressed further east, reaching the region later called Mesopotamia, where he encountered a burgeoning civilization calling themselves the Sumerians.

He even witnessed an invasion involving the Sumerians: a desert civilization from the west, led by a superhuman claiming to be the Sun God Ra, waged a protracted war with the Sumerians. This brutal conflict lasted three years, ending only when both sides, exhausted and bloodied, agreed to a treaty. They vowed, one as ruler of the west, the other of the east.

Having survived this prehistoric struggle for supremacy, Kay intended to continue eastward toward his beloved homeland. Yet reality dealt him harsh blows—the path east was perilous beyond measure. He and his Sumerian friends narrowly escaped death multiple times but failed to find a way home, even losing a close companion along the way.

Heartbroken and despairing, Kay had no choice but to turn back.